NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 11: Top seeds in all four categories, with straight set victories over their opponents, advanced to the quarter-final stage of National Tennis Championships, here on Wednesday. Men's top seed Vijay Kannan defeated Kedar Shah 6-3, 6-3 in a match that lasted just over an hour. Shah brought the match to a faster end, trying to go for outright winners and in the process committed too many unforced errors.Kannan controlled the match right from the word go. He broke Shah's serve in the seventh and ninth games to wrap the first set 6-3.In the second set, Kannan again broke Shah's serve in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead.The seventh game tested the nerves of both players as Shah saved three game points to force a duece and raised some hopes of a comeback.But Kannan held his nerve to overcome the resistance and finished off the set and match at 6-3 to set up a quarter-final meeting with eighth seed R Sridhar, who beat R Bopanna 6-4, 6-1 in the second round on Wednesday.In the women's section, top seed Sai Jayalakshmi made lightwork of Rati Kumar in one hour and 10 minutes to advance to the quarter-finals with a 4-1, 4-2, 4-0.In another interesting second round match, US-based Jyotshna Vasisht lost to Shruti Dhawan in a thrilling five-set encounter that lasted two hours and 13 minutes.Jyotshna got off to a flying start, winning the first two sets 4-1 4-0. In an effort to finish off the match, Jyotshna committed too many unforced errors and Shruti seized the opportunity to take the third and forth sets 4-2 4-0 to send the match into the decider.Jyotshna tried to make a comeback in the decider but Shruti, by then, had grown in confidence and allowed no room for the opponent 5-3 and the match.Meanwhile, second seed Rushmi Chakravorthi defeated Sania Mirza for a place in the quarters and remained on course for a possible final showdown with Jayalakshmi. Rushmi won 4-2, 5-3, 4-2.Shalini Thakur continued her fine run upsetting fifth seed Arathi Venkatraman 1-4, 4-0, 2-4, 4-2, 4-1.
